Jilted (11 page)

He gave her a quick kiss on the nose. “Okay. Five foot two. And you were so adorable. At the end of each class I hoped you’d come over and ask me a question. But you never did, so I made it a habit to call on you often.”

“At first I thought you were picking on me to because you didn’t think I had the answers. You wouldn’t have been the first professor to try to call me out.”

“Not at all. I called on you so much because I wanted to hear your voice. And then the last day I was subbing I was so happy because finally I would get to ask you out without any conflict of interest.”

“I was surprised when you asked me out for coffee. It thought it was to go over something in class.”

“I don’t know why you were so surprised. You’re beautiful, smart, and ambitious. And on top of all that, you’re the most kind-hearted person I’ve ever met. You have a real compassion for people and that’s a rare characteristic these days. How could I not fall in love with you?” He’d never told Skylar that he loved her but the second the words slipped out of his mouth Ashley realized he meant them. This was the woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He wanted to wake up with her wrapped in his arms and when he went to sleep at night Ashley wanted Skylar to be the last person he saw before he closed his eyes.

In the six months they’d been dating, he realized how much she’d come to mean to him and he refused to let his family or anyone else tell him otherwise.

“Y-you love me?” Her sherry colored eyes glistened with the suspicious sheen of tears.

“Absolutely. Tell me you feel the same, Skylar.”

A fat tear drop slid from the corner of her eye. “Yes. I do love you. So much.”

“Don’t ever doubt my feelings for you again, Skylar. I am totally and unequivocally in love with you and nothing will ever change that.” And with that, he sealed his declaration with a kiss.

Ashley wasn’t sure how long he’d stood beneath the icy spray of the shower but by the time he’d stepped out of memory lane he was shivering and his teeth chattered together like castanets.

What a fool he’d been to believe her act of innocence. And now Skylar had set her sights on another victim. But Ashley was determined to stop his friend from making the same mistake he had. If he had anything to do with it, whatever Skylar thought she was doing with Jeremy would end or he’d make her wish she was never born.

<><><><><>

“So are you going to tell me what happened back there?” Jeremy finally asked after he drove her home in relative silence.

After Ashley had left her in the bathroom, the panic attack she’d been trying to fight off earlier came full on. She’d run into the stall and placed her head between her knees, fighting for breath. It was only when someone opened her stall door did she realized she didn’t lock it.

“Honey, are you okay?” An older woman asked. She was wearing a maid’s uniform.

Skylar fought for air, unable to answer.

“Should I call 911?”

She managed to shake her head.

“Sweetie, you don’t look too well. Is there something I can do for you? How about I get you a glass of water?”

“Okay,” Skylar finally got out.

The maid disappeared for a moment and in the meantime, Skylar faintly heard the sound of people coming in and out of the restroom.

“Here you go, honey. Drink this. It will make you feel better.”

Skylar gratefully took the glass of clear liquid, but when she took a sip, she nearly spit it out.

“I poured a little vodka in it. Not too much but enough to calm you down. Drink up.”

Skylar hesitated for a moment before downing the glass’s contents. Just as the maid suggested, it did calm her enough to finally function. “Thank you,” she whispered, handing the glass back to her savior. “I’m sorry, what’s your name?”

“Marisol and it’s no problem, hun. Will you be okay?”

Skylar nodded. “Yes I think so.”

“Good.

Marisol leaned in closer. “Honey, I saw that guy come out of the bathroom. Did he hurt you? Should I call the police?”

Skylar shook her head vehemently. Once again Ashley had completely humiliated her but this time she was a participant. She felt like a damn fool. How would she get through the night? She’d been looking forward to being here tonight with Jeremy and now all she wanted to do was go home, curl up in a ball and cry. “No. He didn’t hurt me, not physically at least.”

“Sweetie, speaking as a woman with three dirt bag ex-husbands, some men just aren’t worth it. I have to go finish my rounds but you go fix your face and hold your chin up, sweetie. The best revenge is being fabulous, and forget about that jerk.”

Those words were easier said than done, but somehow Skylar had found the strength to fix her make-up and join Jeremy who was sitting with some of his fellow doctors. She’d pasted a smile on her face and pretended everything was all right for her date’s sake, but her night was officially ruined.

Jeremy must have sensed something was wrong as well but didn’t say anything until now and she truly didn’t know what to tell him.

“So you’re not going to tell me why you spent a half hour in the bathroom and then you came out looking like you’d lost your best friend. At the beginning of the night you were in good spirits but you barely said a word while you were at the table. Please tell me what the matter is.” He turned down her street and pulled up in front of her house.

Skylar folded her hands in her lap, not knowing where to begin. She owed him an explanation but she wasn’t sure where to begin. It was a slippery slope; after all, he and Ashley were friends. Maybe he would think less of her and if that was the case then perhaps the two of them weren’t meant to be. She released a huge sigh. “Your friend Ashley….”

“Yeah? What about him.”

“Tonight wasn’t the first night we met.”

“What?”

She looked at him to see the confusion etched on his face. “We’ve met before.”

“I don’t understand. Neither one of you gave any indication that you knew each other.”

“Because we didn’t exactly end on good terms.”

“Did you used to work together?”

“No.”

“Do you plan on expounding on that?”

Skylar looked down at her lap. “I was engaged once.”

“You never mentioned an engagement but I’m assuming it didn’t work out.”

“Yeah. I didn’t bring it up because my fiancé dumped me on our wedding day in front of our friends and family. He told me he didn’t want anything to do with me after that and he gave me some bogus explanation as his reason for doing it. But then I found out I was pregnant so I went to him and he basically called me a liar and threatened to ruin me if I tried to pawn someone else’s children off on him. I was devastated. I wanted to die. The only thing that kept me from ending it all was my babies. And it was a very difficult pregnancy. I was sick all the time, I’d nearly lost them because of the stress and then I was on bed rest for most of my term. I was in a living nightmare because of what he did to me.”

“And what was the bogus reason he gave?”

“He accused me of cheating. He even showed me pictures of me with some guy I never met but they had to be fakes because I wasn’t unfaithful to him. I think he doctored them somehow to use as an excuse to break things off. It was the most bizarre thing. But the bottom line is, after what he did to me, it took me years to pick up the pieces of my heart. That’s one of the reasons why I’ve been reluctant to return to the dating scene.”

Jeremy reached over and caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. “I’m so sorry that you went through that. Anyone who could hurt another human being so deliberately deserves to have his ass kicked. Why didn’t you ever tell me about it? I mean I know you said things didn’t work out between you and the triplets’ father but you never went into detail. Why now? I mean the only reason I can think that you would bring this out now was because….” His eyes widened as realization seemed to dawn. He pulled his hand away from her face as if he’d been scorched.

Skylar squeezed her eyes tight to hold back the tears that threatened to fall. She’d finally found a cool guy that she was ready to take a chance with and now this. She couldn’t expect him to choose his old buddy over her. Jeremy would probably believe his friend had a good reason to get rid of her. “Look Jeremy, I understand if you don’t want to continue things with me,” she said softly.

“The funny thing is, when I saw your boys I thought they looked so familiar. I didn’t make the connection right away but now I get it,” he said more to himself that to her.

“They do look a lot like their father.”

Jeremy snorted. “They’re his miniature replicas. Does he know about the children?”

“I told you, he wants nothing to do with them, so I’m going to keep it that way. Look, I appreciate you bringing me out tonight. I’m just sorry things didn’t work out.”

“Skylar, look at me.” Jeremy captured her chin and turned her head until she was looking at him.

“Jeremy, you don’t have to drag this out. If you don—”

He placed his finger against Skylar’s lips to silence her. “Shh. Let me finish. One of the first things I noticed about you besides the fact that I think you’re gorgeous was the sadness in your eyes. I wanted nothing more than anything to strangle the person who hurt you. What Ashley did to you was despicable and just because we were friends in college it doesn’t mean I’m going to automatically side with him. My feelings for you haven’t changed and I want to give us a chance. He may have been your past, but I want to be your future.” And then he closed the gap between them by placing his lips against hers.

Chapter Nine

“What the hell is your problem tonight, man? You nearly got into a fight with three people. I wanted to play some ball tonight, not mediator.” Tim glared at him.

Ashley wiped his face with a towel before grabbing his gym bag and heading to the locker room. He completely ignored his friend.

Tim, however, wouldn’t let things go. He grabbed Ashley by the shoulder. “Dude. Don’t fucking walk away from me!”

Ashley whirled around to face the other man with fists clenched. “Don’t touch me.”

Tim raised a brow. “Or what? You’re going to try to fight me, too? What’s your problem? You’re going to get yourself kicked out of this gym.”

Ashley grimaced. “I seriously doubt it. As much as a membership here costs, my being aggressive on the basketball court would be a flimsy reason to break the contract.” He and Tim belonged to an exclusive gym that had all the top of the line equipment, personal trainers, an Olympic-sized pool, nutritional consultants, on-hand doctors and a social club. It was a state of the art facility that offered more amenities than most work out facilities did. There was a weekly basketball league that Ashley and Tim participated in. Ashley normally looked forward to the games, especially since he spent so much time in the office. It was great exercise and he enjoyed the friendly competition.

Tonight, however, all he could think about was his encounter with Skylar. He was still pissed that she had showed up at the banquet as if she didn’t have a care in the world. She had no business looking sexy, smelling good, and tasting like pure sin. Never mind that he’d initiated the contact between them, it’s not like she’d fought him off. It was clear that Skylar had no integrity. She was there on a date with another man while letting him touch her in the most intimate of places. In his opinion she hadn’t changed a bit.

Ashley bet she was letting Jeremy do everything to her that he’d done. He found Jeremy’s number through the hospital directory and had contacted him but his calls weren’t returned. He was certain Skylar must have told Jeremy about their previous association. Probably lies.

“Are you just going to ignore me?” Tim demanded, bringing Ashley out of his deep thoughts.

“What the fuck do you want from me?” He growled, irritated that Tim was getting on his case. He didn’t need this shit on top of everything else.

“I want you to stop acting like a dick and get that bug out your ass. What’s going on with you? You were hard-fouling people like crazy tonight. I’m surprised you weren’t ejected from the game. Look, if something’s bothering you, tell me. I’m your best friend. We don’t shut each other out when something is wrong.”

Ashley wanted to Tell Tim to fuck off but after seeing the genuine concern on his friend’s face, he relented. With a sigh he racked his hands through his hair. “Let me take a shower so I can feel human again.”

Tim nodded. “Okay. I’m going to go grab one myself. Meet you at the juice bar in 15?”

Ashley nodded. “Yeah.”

Nearly 15 minutes later, Ashley headed to the gym’s juice bar and grabbed a protein shake. Tim was already there waiting for him.

“So what’s going on with you?” Tim asked when Ashley took a seat.

“She’s back.”

Tim scrunched his russet brows together in confusion. “Who’s back?”

“Skylar. She was at the banquet I attended a few days ago.”

“The Skylar who you almost married?”

“Yeah, that Skylar.”

Tim didn’t respond right away. He looked as if he was processing what he’d just been told. Finally he answered. “Wow and judging from how big an asshole you’ve been acting that meeting didn’t go well.”

“She was with Jeremy.”

“Jeremy Sullivan, from college?”

“Yeah, he’s a doctor now and he seemed quite taken with her.”

“Okay, so you saw a blast from your past. It’s been five years, Ash. Considering all the pussy you’ve gone through over the years I thought you’d moved on by now.”